We are in learning to read mode here.
Sort of.
Okay, maybe not really.
I am no help. I, somehow, taught myself to read. My parents assumed the school taught me. My school assumed my parents were working with me at home. Apparently great guffaws were had at a meet-the-teacher night when it was determined that neither of them had any influence on me at all. All that I know is that by the time I was Tesfa’s age I could read and since I have almost no memories of not being able to read, I am unclear as to what I should be doing to help Tesfa.
Kindergarten sent home a book yesterday. Tesfa is to know what sound S and T and A make by the end of the week. Firstly, awesome for picking letters in her name. Secondly, she knows that already. So school is a bit behind where she is right now. No help there either.
How did you learn to read? I ask Geoff. This is a waste of time. Geoff has something like four memories of his life before the age of eighteen, all of which involve candy. So Geoff is no help.
Why does my backpack say zoo on it? Tesfa asks.
Hey, I should out. You can read zoo! How exciting! Let’s read some more!
Tesfa stares at me and goes back to colouring her My Little Pony book.
Maybe phonics? My memory of phonics is a grade two poster which told me When two vowels go walking, the first one does the talking. Tesfa vaguely knows what a vowel is. They’re the red ones in the movable alphabet, except Montessori is over, a fact over which I cry about every day or so while Tesfa tells me We can always go visit. I told Miss Viktoriya I’d come visit. You can come visit with me. And Miss Viktoriya, on our last day of Montessori, told me that Tesfa is past the basic movable alphabet exercises. She has to learn to read.
I spend two hours while watching the worst, rape-culturey show in existence, How I Met Your Mother, making Montessori method phonics-style games. Match the picture, make a sentence, which words rhyme, etc. Tesfa plays with them under duress. Make a sentence works occasionally. We make one each day. Then we draw a picture. My bat gags is our best one yet.
It’s not reading if I don’t know it already Tesfa complains. I read cat because I know cat.
So, we’ll learn how to sound it out together, I tell her. What’s the first letter say?
I just want to colour, she tells me. And I know all the sounds. This is true. She does, except maybe getting caught up a few times on hard-versus-soft g or barely used letters like w.
I have a phonics book from Usborne. I read it all pointing at every word. Ted buys his red bed. Then I go again with Tesfa, sentence by sentence. I say a sentence and point to each word. Then Tesfa reads the same sentence. I make up a sentence that isn’t in the book. Tesfa holds the book open and “reads” it too.
Where does it say that? I ask her.
I said it because you said it.
But you’re supposed to read it.
Shrugs.
Later. Will you read me my book?
You know, if you learned to read, you could read it yourself.
Oh mommy, says Tesfa. Why would I want to do that?